dual mode

I am giving 5 stars to the camera alone. If I had to rate the colaterals: Instructions, manuals, customer service, and intentional obstacles ...then It wont deserve more than 3 stars.

When correctly configured and "harmonized" within your network, the camera works very well. I dont know about your expectations but compared with others ccd cameras in the market the balance price/quality is unbeatable.

Since any critic must be 1) constructive to the maker and 2) helpful to other customers, following ...the details and tips:

Problem: Lack of information, Instructions and solutions to specific and commom problems experienced by most of the users.

**** Read Carefully what the other users who rated positively the camera, said about it and how they resolved the problems. Without all these tips I would have wasted hours to findout the solutions. Amazingly those issues are not yet in the Q&A at DLINK support site and neither complement pages for your manuals. Another Marketing Dude with a good monthly check but not a clue about the most fundamental Marketing disciplines.

Resuming:
**** Not only with the camera or Dlink... Any thing hooked to your PC or network must be updated with the most recent firmware. Here...No exceptions, and if you use diferent brands for your router and other net-gears then no option: Update the firmware.

**** If you are behind a router and you want use the DDNS than use the router's feature and not the camera one.

**** If you are using diferent brand for your router... WATCH OUT:
a) Transmission rate of the camera must be 11 Mbs. DLINK's ambitions must have let them think that most of the routers in the market are their own, so the 22 Mbs for the 802.11 b standard has been assumed.
b) If your using Linksys G router then adjust the basic rate (wireless advanced setup) to 1-2 Mps This will make it more compatible with all sort of exotic 11B devices.
c) Assign to the camera a static IP so you will be able to forward through the router, the necessary ports for Audio+Video

**** Customer Service:.... Have a translator from India before calling ( My english teatcher and friend Kamal is from India...so no hard feelings here ), and be sure that you are a beginer because if you are an advanced user you ll have to be patient and wait untill the dude finishes his script and then find out that you know more than him and it it is only then when you deserve a real tech. assistant. The dude will give you a code, forward your call and then when "the expert" takes the phone the call is lost. bip bip bip bip.....nnnnoooooooooo all this time wasted and I only got an "Indie-Tech" Language Class.

Hey Markting Dude This is again your department...uppps Remember...: No Emporwerment Without Ownership...you ll be soon in the toaster if you dont change something.

I purchased my DCS-5300W in early April and so far I've been quite pleased with it. Be sure to download the latest firmware (1.02) version from D-Link's site. The initial version was a bit buggy causing problems such as the clock losing several minutes per day, and inconsistent results with the ftp feature.

A significant change with the new firmware is the removal of the camera pan and tilt feature from all users except the administrator. I thought this was a bug, but after speaking with a knowledgable tech, he informed me that this is one of the new features of the upgrade. I understand the logic behind this decision, but they should have removed the display of the pan and tilt icons for these non-admin userids.

I've had much success using the dynamic DNS service from DynDNS.org. I set my D-Link DI-624 router up to use a static IP address for the camera and activated the dynamic dns (DDNS) feature on the router, not the camera. My ISP assigned DHCP IP address has changed several times now, and the router DDNS feature has worked perfectly.

My only complaint would be the lack of an optical zoom capability. D-Link added digital zoom with the latest firmware upgrade but as we all know, digital zoom is vastly inferior to optical zoom.

Now that I have it up and running, I love it. I have grown to know the D-link tech support crew fairly well over the past week. Most of them are really good, but if one of them can't figure out your problem, don't send the camera back like they may suggest. Call back later and try it with someone else. Overall the camera works exactly as described, but there are a few caveats.
1) If you plan on logging on to the camera from work (i.e. to peek in on your new baby), be aware that the camera requires more than just port 80. It also requires three other open ports and many corporate networks are locked down tight with regards to open ports. Grandma and Grandpa will be able to log on just fine from their home computer though.
2) The camera gets fussy when I try to use it in wireless mode and view it with a wireless laptop on the network (the ultimate baby monitor). It works great in wireless mode when viewed from a wired computer.
3) Only the administrator can control the movement of the camera. Guest or other camera viewers have to view the current position of the camera. I think this is a bug and will likely be fixed with firmware.

Overall it is a very good product and seems to be of high quality. The manual isn't too bad considering all of the different network configurations a user may have. I am happy with my purchase.